Southwest Airlines Leadership Quotes

When hiring someone, start with the premise that attitudes are contagious. Then ask yourself one question: Is theirs worth catching? I’ve been in business for over thirty years, and I’ve come to realize the difference in success and failure is not how you look, not how you dress, not how much you’re educated, but how you think! In my business life, I’ve watched many very intelligent people fail miserably because they have a negative attitude, and I’ve also observed just as many people with average intelligence soar to success because of positive attitudes. Southwest Airlines’s vice president of people is often asked the question “How do you get your people to be so nice?” Her answer is always the same: “We hire nice people.

However, leadership is not confined to the CEO. Leadership is better understood as a process that can take place at any level of an organization.

Much leadership literature—even from “Christian” publishers—dwells on executives or “stars” in big businesses, professional sports, and the military. Frequent are the celebrations of leadership in Disney, Apple, Southwest Airlines, or Shell. While there are things to be learned, caution is also appropriate. These kinds of books reinforce the interests and perspectives of the status quo.

The events of September 11, 2001 presented an unprecedented ethical challenge to the business leaders of the airline industry. From Jim Parker’s own lecture (Parker. 2010) and his book Do the Right Thing (Parker, 2008) as well as other publicly available material, we can highlight the ethical business decisions of Jim Parker, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Southwest Airlines at that time, and the highly positive business impact these decisions had on Southwest Airlines.

As Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines succinctly put it, 'Strategy, overdone; doing stuff, underdone'.